


Sparks Fly

by FlusteredWriter



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27472912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlusteredWriter/pseuds/FlusteredWriter
Summary: He’s trying to play it off, trying to avoid what she’s saying, but he won’t even look at her. “Is it really that bad, though?” he says after a moment. “I mean, would it really be that different?”“Do you hear yourself?” She can’t believe that he’s actually trying to say this. “Of course it’s different.”“Well, yeah, but how different can it be? I mean, I’m always gonna look this good-”“You’re dead!”
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 230





	1. Chapter 1

The only thing Julie could think of when she first walked into the studio was, “How could he possibly have lit the candles?”

The other boys could have helped, she supposed, but there were so many, all over the place. It was… well, perfect. Candlelight danced off flower petals, illuminating a picnic on cozy blankets in the middle of the floor. Part of her was absolutely delighted; this is the sort of thing most girls dream about, being surprised with a grand romantic gesture like this. Other girls make whole Pinterest boards of scenes like this, plan scene after scene over in their head until it’s absolutely perfect. They would never get something as perfect as this. 

“Do you like it?” Luke looks so nervous, so eager, hovering just over her shoulder. He’s wearing something nicer than usual, but he’s still his grunge self. He’s got his hair slicked back though, something with definite Reggie vibes. The boys had to have helped him. 

“Yeah, it’s great,” she manages, because to some extent it is. “How did you…?”

“Flynn helped. We wrote stuff down- Well, I wrote stuff down.”

So the others didn’t help. Or, they didn’t help much. Honestly, she’s surprised Flynn helped, after all she said about how hopeless this all was. How badly her feelings were going to get her hurt. 

His hand feels so solid in hers as he leads her over, helps her sit down, and she can’t tell if it’s actually warm or if her stupid heart is just tricking her into thinking it is. Part of her doesn’t care, just wants to enjoy the moment, soak up the perfect scene with this wonderful boy.

He’s so full of life, and he looks at her with such wonder. She lets herself forget, just for a second, lets herself believe that he’s just a normal boy. A boy who really likes her, a boy she really likes. Someone she can go on dates with and introduce to her dad, someone she could grow up with…

“What’s wrong?” he says gently.

“What? Nothing, why do you think something’s wrong?”

“You’ve just got that thinking face on.”

“What?! No I don’t, this is just my face!” she protests. He just laughs and dodges the pillow she throws at him. 

They’re too close. She can feel the charge between them, so strong it’s almost tangible, like something she can hold and hide away. If she could, she’d stay in this moment forever, this one, perfect moment.

He reaches up to brush a curl out of her face. “You’ve got that face again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What? No, don’t be sorry, it’s cute-”

“ _ Don’t _ -” She bites down her protest; she didn’t mean for it to come out that strong. “Don’t do that.”

“What, say you’re cute? Okay, how about… Beautiful?”

“ _ Luke _ -”

“Gorgeous?”

“Luke,  _ stop it _ !” Her voice cracks, and the teasing smile on his face disappears, replaced with something like concern, but also… knowing. He knows.

There’s a tense silence for a moment. “You can’t do this to me,” she finally says. There’s a burning in her throat, a threat of tears, which isn’t fair. This shouldn’t be so hard. This should be  _ obvious _ . They can’t do this.

“Julie…”

“I mean it, it’s not… It’s not okay.”

“Yeah I tried telling Flynn it was tacky, but  _ wow _ is that girl stubborn.”

“ _ Luke _ .”

He’s trying to play it off, trying to avoid what she’s saying, but he won’t even look at her. “Is it really that bad, though?” he says after a moment. “I mean, would it really be that different?”

“Do you hear yourself?” She can’t believe that he’s actually trying to say this. “Of course it’s different.”

“Well, yeah, but how different can it be? I mean, I’m always gonna look this good-”

“You’re  _ dead _ !” 

It’s like she slapped him in the face. The whole aloof, bad boy thing drops immediately, replaced with something she’s only seen at his parents’ house. It’s a broken, sad thing that seeps into her bones, dims the whole room. What was romantic and beautiful a moment ago feels cold and staged now. 

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t mean to…” She’s not sure how to finish that thought.

“I know.”

“It’s just… Well it’s like the definition of wanting what you can’t have, and…”

“You don’t want to get hurt.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt either! Where would this go, Luke?”

“Maybe somewhere good!”

“How is this supposed to end well?” she pushes. “You can’t age, no one but me can see you. We can’t go out on dates, or to dances. I can’t really talk to you unless we’re totally alone. I can barely touch you unless you’re focusing really hard. I can’t introduce you to my friends, my family-”

“Okay, I get it!” he says. “I’m dead and you’re not and that makes everything impossible.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Stop saying that, it’s not your fault! It’s not anyone’s fault! It just…  _ sucks _ .” He huffs and runs his hands through his hair. “God, Julie, you have no idea how much this sucks. I look at you, and… I feel more alive than I ever did, more than I did when I was  _ actually _ alive.”

The confession takes her breath away, shakens her resolve. “Luke…”

“You know, the stupid thing is, Reggie and Alex told me how terrible this idea was; they’d barely help me. Even Flynn told me this wasn’t going to work, b ut I thought… I don’t even know what I thought.”

The silence hangs, but finally Julie finds the words. Luke still won’t really look at her, so she scootches closer and puts her head on his shoulder. 

“Sometimes… I forget. I forget that you’re gone, that you weren’t always a part of my life. You, all of you, you made everything in my life better. And, when you look at me… I feel like I could stay in that moment forever and be perfectly happy.”

He tilts her chin up, making her look at him. He looks like he’s about to cry, but she blames it on the low light. His fingers trail down her jaw, resting on her carotid, feeling her pulse just under the skin. They’re so close now, she swears she can feel his heart beating. 

“You’re so warm…” she says under her breath, more thinking out loud than anything. Really, it’s not that hard to forget that he’s dead. 

When he finally kisses her, she swears nothing else in her life will ever feel as amazing as this. Her stomach flutters, a thousand butterflies working through her veins, taking her breath away. It’s so stupidly cliché; she always hated those songs that boiled kisses down to sparks flying and electricity, but it really was like that. It felt like fireworks going off around them, like hearing music for the very first time, like a dance you know every step to, like every other dumb cliché out there. It felt like love. It felt like home. 

He doesn’t say or do anything to break the kiss, just vanishes away without another word, tears left on her cheeks. All the candles blow out at once, leaving her alone in the dark. It’s some sort of silent agreement, that they’d have that one moment and that was it, because really that’s all they could have. She stays, catches her breath, tries to lock away all the hurt and fear someplace where it won’t overcome her. 

It’s not until she’s back inside the house that she realizes she hadn’t been the one crying. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We shouldn’t have helped him, this was a terrible idea,” Alex said after a little while. “This is gonna be a disaster.”
> 
> “Aww, c’mon, you don’t know that-“
> 
> “Rule number one of bands, man: don’t date your bandmembers, it never ends well."

“How do you think it’s going?”

Alex frowned, trying not to be annoyed as he tapped his drumsticks against the Orpheum stage, but that had to be the millionth time Reggie had asked the same question that in the past hour alone. They both knew the answer was most definitely “not well,” but Reggie was such an optimist he was probably having a hard time coming to grips with it. And, well, Alex would be lying if he said part of him didn’t hope that maybe,  _ maybe _ it went okay.

How could it, though? They were all dead for crying out loud, and Julie was very much alive. She was gonna grow up and no doubt live an amazing life, she couldn’t be stuck with teenage ghosts forever. Especially not romantically.

Still… Anyone could see how much she cared about Luke, how much she cared about all of them. And she was such an inspiring person, it was hard not to get caught up in her energy, to forget their whole situation.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Reggie said glumly when he got no answer from Alex as he got lost in thought.

“We shouldn’t have helped him, this was a terrible idea,” Alex said after a little while. “This is gonna be a disaster.”

“Aww, c’mon, you don’t know that-“

“Rule number one of bands, man: don’t date your bandmembers, it never ends well. And that’s not even bringing in the whole ‘he’s dead, she’s alive’ thing!”

“But look at all we’ve made together. We got to play the Orpheum, for crying out loud!” Reggie gestures around the stage to emphasize his point. “She’s what makes us amazing, and it’s obvious she likes him, too.”

“Which is exactly why we shouldn’t mess it up by putting that all out in the open. We gotta crush that shit down,” he says, dropping his fist into his open hand for emphasis. 

Reggie gasps dramatically. “No, not crushing emotions down.”

“Like a bug.”

“How dare you.”

There’s a myriad of slamming and cursing coming from above them, ruining their humor with a reminder of how serious their situation actually was. Luke had poofed to the catwalk above them, kicking at stage lights and other equipment, obviously upset.

Alex and Reggie shared a look. “Told you.”

“Maybe it’s a good mad?”

“Man, do you hear yourself sometimes?”

They poofed up to the catwalk in an instant, just behind Luke, but giving him enough space to realize their presence.

“Heeey, man,” Reggie said awkwardly. “How’d it go?”

“Like  _ shit _ , how do you think it went?!” There was a tightness to his anger that they both knew meant he had been crying. “It was stupid and tacky and she got upset and we didn’t even have the stupid picnic.”

“You  _ wasted my charcuterie board _ -“

“ _ Reggie _ ,” Alex chided. “Slightly bigger things happening right now.”

“Flynn and I were on Pinboard all day working on that!”

“Pinterest,” Alex corrected.

“Who cares about a stupid shark-whatever board!” Luke yelled, turning to face them. Yup, definitely crying. Oh, man. “She probably never wants to see me again because I made it all weird and the band is ruined and I’m never gonna see her again!”

“Okay, take a breath,” Alex said as he tried to get Luke to sit down on some stray equipment. “Did she say she doesn’t want to be in the band or something?”

“No,” he huffed. “She just… said we couldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know… Be together,” he managed to get out. 

Reggie sits next to them. “But she still wants to be friends and be in our band, though. Right?”

Luke shrugs. “We didn’t really talk about that, but… I mean, she didn’t say she didn’t want to be in the band, so… Probably?”

“You guys just talked?” Alex asked. 

“Yup,” he said, a little too forcefully as he stood and started walking down the catwalk. “Just talked.”

Reggie’s face split with the giddiest grin. “Oh they definitely did  _ not _ ‘just talk’-”

“ _ Reggie _ , not now.”

They got up and followed Luke down the catwalk, trying to catch up with him.

“Look, man, even if it’s weird, we’re all still in this together,” Reggie said when they got to him. “It sucks, and I’m sorry it couldn’t be different… But we’re here for you.”

“Yeah, and you know we always will be,” Alex added. 

“You are kind of stuck with us, after all.”

Even with how upset he must have been, they were rewarded with just the faintest hint of a smile. “....Thanks, guys.”

Alex pulled the other two into a bear hug, him and Reggie holding Luke in the middle. It was a perfect, quiet moment… for all of two seconds, before Reggie opened his big mouth. 

“So about that ‘we just talked’ thing that was  _ obviously _ a lie-”

“I’m gonna push him off this catwalk.”

Alex put his hands up in surrender. “I warned him, anything after this he brought on himself.”

“Hey-”

Luke picked Reggie up around the middle to unceremoniously toss him over the railing. They heard Reggie poof before hitting the ground, but when they looked over the side, he was spilled out on the stage like he had actually fallen. 

“You’re lucky I’m already dead!” he yelled as they laughed at the sight. 

Already, Alex could see some of the tension leaving Alex. He was obviously still upset, but not irreparably so. They had all been through so much already, they could get through this. 

Yeah, they’d be okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You asked for it, I answered. Ch. 2, the aftermath, hope you enjoy it

**Author's Note:**

> There may be a part/chapter 2 coming, I'm still playing with it


End file.
